Ellen and Mister Trout, she still couldn’t call him “Alvin,” sat on the curbside waiting to live or die at the hands of the men standing over them. She watched as the taller man, the one obviously in charge spat some words at his shorter subordinate. Stepping away from his commander, he took out a very fancy pad phone to make a call. It was top of the line, from what she could see from her strained vantage point. The SunRize logo stood out on the device. It was pricy, whatever model it was, Ellen knew that much, at least.
After a few moments it was clear that whatever somebody he had been hoping to speak with on the other end had finally picked up, as the underling began to speak in rapid fire gutturals into the phone. Ellen couldn’t follow the words, but his excitement about what he said was coming through with crystal clarity. She almost jumped out of her skin when the taller man behind her suddenly spoke in loud, terse words to Trout and her as they sat, wrists bound, in the cold, on the sidewalk.
“He tells of our success tonight in finding and killing the Dancer’s Child.” The tall man sauntered around, stepping down from the sidewalk to the street before them. His movements were languid, and graceful; long limbs wrapped in a fine white suit showing a release of the tension he had been holding up until this very moment. The grin that covered his face was a horrible mix of pure joy, and shone with diamond-like arrogance. “It will be over soon, and you can go on your way. I know I said I would spare you both, but the shavai must be killed, first, before any promises may be bestowed upon you. Nothing without a soul should be left alive to taint my Lord’s clean, Sun touched Earth.”
Closing his eyes as he came to a hard choice, he said with what he must have thought was a kind tone, “You are a nurse at this hospital; my men have watched you for months, now. You work to give health and kindness to those in need. You do my Lord's work." Here he gave a slight chuckle; one that almost sounded sincere to Ellen. "I doubt you were even aware of your life's dedication to My Lord. Heh. Irony."
He tilted his head like a bird watching a bug, filled with predatory cruelty, and an utter lack of humanity. "The media was not able to gain any more information on the thing you had in that bed upstairs; but bribes to janitors and secretaries always get us what We want; always someone wants more than they deserve. I’m sure the news men would have done the same if modern media companies would budget for it. I am told that they used to do such. Thank the good Sun, they no longer find that cost effective. I have read a file on not only you, but every doctor to have given the animal who had been in there treatment since it arrived in your ward.” His accented voice kept hitting the word "It" harder than Ellen would have thought was necessary.
He stared down at Ellen from the heights of his self-righteous heights, and from his expression, almost saddened by the horrible things he was thinking about the lowly bugs now captive beneath him, huddled on the cold curb.
“Enough people have died tonight, and while all information we have about you states that you live a very, very lonely life, I think you might be missed.” This last said with the barest of grins pulling at his coppery brown lips.
She ignored the incredibly rude assessment of her life up to this point, that was a judgment she wasn't willing to defend at the moment. Not to a man with a gun, and several underlings, equally armed. Instead, she attempted to turn the conversation, if slightly, “What’s a shav…” she tried to ask before Mister Trout broke in to interrupt her.
“I don’t think you can call this a win just yet, young man. Your men have been gone a while now, and while they have guns, I’ve heard nothing of them being fired. Bang? Bangbangbang? No? I've not heard any of that. Have you? Did they use silencers? You didn't use any up to now, or am I wrong? How far will your men chase..."
The tall man drew his gun down to rest the tip of the barrel upon Trout's forehead, the Specter of Death in a fine white wool and silk suit.
His grin was calm. Almost serene. Not, serene. Calm, calm worked. Calm worked here in the same way a pool of water hiding a monster beneath the stillness of dark waters was still; that was the calm Mr. Alvin Trout conveyed. Not in peace, but a stillness of anticipation. "Are you quite sure you won't continue to need a hostage, or two?” Ellen couldn’t tell if the look on his face was plain hope or cockiness. The man over them in white looked briefly at “Alvin,” then turned his attention back to Ellen. “I am sorry you have been drawn into this, Nurse Lindsey, but my work... Holy work sometimes causes hardship for those around it. You may call me Mr. Salah. Or, if you please, Abdu, and my friend on the phone is Hisham; we will try to not disrupt your night more than needed.” He gave her what might under other circumstances be called a winning smile; but the gun never wavered in his hand. In any other circumstance she could imagine, Ellen would have to admit that Mr. Salah was a very attractive man. But, here, and now, he was a nightmare that would haunt her for years to come. …if I have those years... she thought.
“Why should I trust you, or you me; I know your names now. And I have a good description of the four of you that I might give to the police, why would you chance my being quiet about this? And all of these other bodies..." Here she looked around, and her thoughts began to grind to a halt as she thought about all of the violence she had just witnessed, and her voice slowed. ” Ellen tried to sound sure of herself, but knew her voice betrayed too much emotion. It may even have squeaked. Just at the end.
“And who will ever believe you? My Brothers and I will clean up this mess, and if you talk no one will believe you. People were killed? Who? The old hospital guard has gone on vacation, and while away will send in his resignation. He will have been offered a better paying job in a warmer country. He will even send the occasional holiday card to his former coworkers. A foreign cab driver? You never bothered to learn his name, now did you? He went home to his ailing mother, or some other such family member. It looks to me like he fled the country in shame after crashing his taxi into a hospital's front lobby. We can make it happen. So please, feel free to go to the police, woman who lives alone, never goes out on dates, and has a stressful job. With nothing to find, they will all look at you as if you’ve gone crazy.” The smile had gone from Abdu’s lips, and a tight frown replaced it. “I am sorry, but this is how it must be. And so, this is how it WAS.”
Never taking his eyes, or his gun, from her, Abdu gave her a shallow but solemn bow, a minor inclination of his head. Hisham continued to chatter giddily on the pad phone where he stood in the street, a few meters behind Mr. Salah. While she had no idea what language he spoke, she continually heard the name “Amra.”
It was clear from his tone; Amra was going to like whatever he heard tonight. Hisham would work hard to ensure it.
Mr. Trout took that moment to begin a low, barely audible chant that had such resonance Ellen thought her molars might liquefy. The silky rumbling tones began to wash around her body; vibrations making Ellen feel uncomfortable as they cut back and forth through both her and the cold, wet sidewalk on which she sat. Looking down at the ground beneath her, Ellen thought she saw the hard surface flex and shimmer in the grip of the sounds emanating from Mister Trout.
With unparalleled speed and a cry of incomprehensible gutturals, Abdu’s foot lashed out at the little Welshman, knocking him end over end across the sidewalk to roll into the brick sided wall of the hospital. The audible crack of his foot connecting with Trout was enough to shock Ellen from the memory of the vibrations the little man had begun in the concrete around them. The boneless thudding of his small body into the wall was enough to make Ellen cringe visibly. She was horrified at the instant violence, and almost casual cruelty Salah had just used on the little man.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
With a clicking of heels on cement, Trout bounced unexpectedly to his feet at the wall’s edge and grinned at his captors. “You and your friend, Mister Abdu,” he took great relish in drawing out each syllable of the word miiiiisssssstterrrrrrr, rolling his r’s like a bad stage actor; “had best let us go. Now. While I would like nothing better than to see someone as open minded as you die here in this gutter, I think we’ve had as much of that as we need tonight, yes?”
A man's voice came from the broken doors of the lobby, timid and afraid of making too much noise. "Hello? Is anyone out here?"
From her streetside seat, Ellen twisted at the sound, to see one of the hospital security guards, Stephen "something" wander fearfully towards the broken maw that once had been the Reception desk, one shaky hand on the Galvanic Deterrent at his belt, the other holding up an electric torch, which moved with rapid, jittering movements as it swept back and forth across the sidewalk near where she sat, half turned and watching him in his confusion.
His eyes moved to where Ellen sat on the curb. Steve stared at her, his light blue eyes wide in his pale face, too fine thinning gray-blond hair waving energetically in the minimal wind of the cold night air.
Ellen stared back at him. Trout stared at Ellen, and then Steve. Abdu, wide eyed, looked from Steve to Ellen, and then back to Alvin.
A loud pop came from behind her, and Steve spun away in a red smeared spray of blood and skin as the upper left portion of his forehead made a break for freedom from the body it had been with for 52 years up until now. She watched as the rest of his body slumped out of sight behind the ruined glass front doors.
From where he now stood, Mr. Salah said, simply, "Thank you, Hisham." Before he turned back to the side of the building where Trout now stood. Trout's grin spread even further across his face, and he asked, "More 'wrinkles' Abdu? That "wrinkle" was named Mr. Keough, if you cared to know."
Abdu’s eyes grew large as he stepped toward the suddenly brave, if slightly bruised, little badger of a man. With a quick fierce motion, he picked up Mr. Trout by his shirt front, anger and indignation rolling from his face in jagged waves. Walking slowly back to Ellen’s side, shaking “Alvin” all the while, Abdu slammed him down onto the pavement with as much force as he could have mustered. “You WILL die tonight, no matter what else I might do, ABOMINATION!” And with that he tried to spit on the little bound man, and his rage made him miss, causing a dribble of righteous indignation to spatter his own shirtfront.
As he stomped agitated back to his now greatly reduced cohort, Ellen gave the small man a startled look. “Are you alright? Did he hurt you badly?” any other day the shaking in her voice would have angered the tall nurse. “And what were you trying to do, taunting him like that?” She began to hiss at him in a very failed effort to be quiet.
“Alvin’s” face while wrinkled in obvious pain, as he smiled up at Ellen. A new, infectious grin slowly spreading across his features turned ugly when he said quietly, “I gave him a chance to live…he could have walked away to spend the rest of whatever life he lives doing whatever it is he does. But this Abdu lad is not going to trouble you and me much longer." He made a grumbling, humming noise, thankfully not as far reaching as his previous efforts at "humming" had been. "No. He won't be here to bother us for too much longer, I don't think." He glanced back at the ruined entrance, saying "Poor Mr. Keough."
His face went into a manic smile then, showing far too many teeth, "Someone you know is coming up that alley." He nodded to the east side of the hospital. "Alone, and walking very quietly. I was able to just feel his movements over the stones before this lad thought to use me as a football.”
“What the hell are you on about, you ABSOLUTE nutter?” Her exasperation had not only finally shown up, but it had brought snacks and planned to stay a while.
Silently Mister Trout gave her a coy look, and turned his eyes to the two men where they talked a few meters away, while one still held a gun pointed at their two seated captives. They conferred a moment, while the younger man held his hand over the phone. Reaching some agreement, Abdu turned back to his charges. A slow smile spread on his face as he returned to stand before them, but just out of reach from kicking legs; fanatical doesn’t always mean stupid. To Ellen he said simply, “Please wait and you will be set free; I will throw you the keys to your bonds before I go. As I said, we have no wish to further disturb your life; but we cannot take the chance you will involve yourself with these people. And the longer you are exposed to this one, the less I will be able to protect you from my Brothers. They have no understanding for any human who might choose to consort with… something like this thing.”
With another small smile, Abdu took a step back, ensuring that he was beyond the range of any tactic the dwarf might try. As Ellen watched the two men from her perch on the sidewalk, something long and thin sprouted from the neck of Hisham. His talking on the cell phone was cut off abruptly by the sounds of his hiccupping, and finally a strained gurgle as he folded to the ground. As she stared at the now cooling body of Hisham, Ellen could just make out the short, baggy clothed figure of the barefooted little man Mister Trout insisted was Banner stepping from the alley a block away.
With the graceful silence with which he had fled, the petit man fitted what looked like an extremely long thin arrow into a curved handle-like thing, which he held in his right hand. The improbably orange shaft was longer than any arrow she had ever seen, and the flat looking handle seemed to be just longer than the length of his forearm. How’s he expecting to shoot that without a bow…?
Abdu had just begun his turn to see what had silenced Hisham, when the figure up the street made his move. With a cocking of his head, and a lunging half step a bowler might take, his right arm snapped forward, his wrist flexed, and the long orange arrow flexed in a ridiculous curve before it sped through the air with an angry, rattling buzz.
From her perspective, she saw Abdu’s shoulders tense, and his body gave a start as if surprised. With grave solemnity, Abdu turned back to them, and began to point his gun at Mister Trout; he grunted as some new thing struck him from behind, but still he stood.
The orange shaft protruding a meter from his chest bobbed and flexed comically as he tried to take aim, sweat now soaking his brow. His head snapped violently down at a painful angle, another long arrow decorating and adding color to his monotonous wardrobe, a flamboyant feather sprouting from the back of his head, like from a hat she couldn’t see. The gun clattered to the gutter by Ellen’s feet as Abdu breathed once more, and then fell in a clacking bobbing pile of what looked to her untrained eye like street reflectors with feathered tops. Bits of rag cloth waved in the breeze and movement of the arrow amidst streetlights.
A low giggling erupted from beside Ellen as the mad little Welshman flopped onto his back, and rolled around on the cement next to her. Turning back to watch her savior approach, Ellen once again marveled at the silence of the man’s tread; and at the stoicism he showed in not wearing shoes on these wintry streets. Hazel eyed, he stared back at Ellen, silent as the morning dew.
With a quick movement he kicked the white suited man over, and rifled through his pockets, finally coming out with a tiny glinting sliver of metal. He beetled his brows thoroughly as he stepped to the captives, and said, haltingly, “Very small key…oooooh!” his slightly almond eyes lit with delight as he saw the handcuffs. “These... they are so pretty! Very well made, but they have no soul. Hurmph...Humans.” His accent rolled and gamboled about as Ellen noticed his close cropped hair was a pleasing auburn under the street lights. As his attention returned to the cuffs; “Wegoingnow. Now. Nownownow. More men will come. These men never move…so not many... more numbers… soon. Many. Lots.” His hands flicked about their wrists, unlocking both sets of manacles.
While it was obvious his accent was partial local, she had no idea why he was speaking in such a staccato way. Like Tarzan…too bad my name is not Jane…and he’s so short, looked taller in the burn ward…this can’t be my Banner…”Me Banner, you Ellen"…doesn’t have the same ring…
While the two men watched, Ellen broke down in what started off as a fit of giggles but quickly ran to gales of loud laughter, and finally tears and full-body, wracking sobbing.